publishing

The author Amanda Foreman is being accused of turning the genteel world of historical biography into a playground for glamorous young female writers trying to make a quick killing in the bestseller lists.

Well, perhaps taking off your clothes to sell your book could be construed as cheapening the genre. Who needs talent when you’ve got tits?

Literary agent Barbara Bauer is suing 19 bloggers and websites, including Wikipedia, YouTube and AbsoluteWrite.com, claiming they are ruining her reputation. Online critics call Bauer one of publishing’s “20 Worst Literary Agents,” claiming she charges clients high fees for little work, and is a “scam agent.”

Hrumph, don’t they know you can’t just go around saying what you think?

Given my respect for the field and for its readers and writers, I understand the disappointment with the gender balance of the contents for Eclipse Two. The truth is that under the pressure of needing to deliver and of my other work, I overlooked gender balance as an issue in the closing couple months of preparing Eclipse Two for publication.

We love independent filmmakers and musicians, and celebrate their maverick spirit, so why don't we want independent writers?

Good question. Maybe it’s because there are so many crappy, wannabe writers out there turning out crappy, wannabe books? Or perhaps it has more to do with the snobbish attitude of the literary industry and its rejection of anything not introduced by the big houses.

Lazy consumers, who don’t want to click more than once to make a purchase, are supplying Amazon the weapon of destruction with which to bend publishers to its will. The online retailing giant has adopted “the literary equivalent of a nuclear option for rebellious publishers who balk at its demands”—disabling the “buy now with 1 click” icon.

Ooooo, nasty ugly.

No, it’s book promotion in the age of the author video. Seth Greenland waxes eloquent on the rapidly blurring line between writer and salesman:

“Now, because of recent developments in the world of publishing, writer and merchant are fusing into one. Willy Loman and Arthur Miller have commingled. Call it -- forgive me -- Birth of a Salesman.”

…book publishers increasingly are counting on their biggest moneymaking writers to crank out books at a rate of at least one a year, right on schedule, and sometimes faster than that. Many top-selling writers…have turned out at least one book annually for years. Now some writers are beginning to grumble about the pressure, and some are refusing to comply.

A little publishing gossip:

The daughter of the "Teflon" mafia don John Gotti has been sued by her publisher over failed plans to produce a memoir of her father's career as a camera-friendly face of organised crime. In a lawsuit filed yesterday in New York, HarperCollins alleges that Victoria Gotti has failed to return a $70,000 (£35,000) advance for a memoir originally due in November 2005.

In a very competitive culture that emphasizes newness and fashion, and promotes the reading of a current blockbuster which is forgotten in a moment's time, the backlist is a vanishing phenomenon. The volume of sales of one-year-old or older books is shrinking, while newer books capture an increasing share of the market.

Meaning some good books drop rapidly from cultural memory. What to do?

"If Spielberg, Poe, or another great came to you would you blow them off too? Without knowing what geniuses they are? IF SO; I'm surprised there are any writers at all with your agency. Are they related to you?"